This interview appeared last week:
Television interview with Assistant Minister Kearney on ABC News - 15 February 2024
Read the transcript from Assistant Minister Kearney's interview on online health services and voluntary assisted dying laws.
The Hon Ged Kearney MP
Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care
Date published: 16 February 2024
Media type: Transcript
Audience: General public
GREG JENNETT, ABC NEWS: Now, there aren't many people
around the Parliament who aren't offering best wishes to Anthony Albanese, the
Prime Minister, and his partner Jodie Haydon after their engagement. Love,
after all, crosses all political divides. Joy in the occasion is also shared by
the Assistant Health Minister, Ged Kearney. We spoke to her starting out on the
prime ministerial engagement.
[Excerpt]
Ged Kearney, welcome back to Afternoon Briefing. It's nice to have you with us
here in the studio.
GED KEARNEY, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR
HEALTH AND AGED CARE: [Talks over] Thanks, Greg.
JENNETT: I'm going
to get to things in the health portfolio very, very quickly, I promise, but
can't go past the fact that the Prime Minister and Jodie Haydon have announced
their engagement. As far as we know, the first prime ministerial engagement
slash wedding in office that we've ever had in this country. Makes it a pretty
special day.
KEARNEY: Oh, it
really does. And who knew the Prime Minister was such a romantic, doing it on
Valentine's Day? It's a great announcement. We're all so happy for them.
They're a gorgeous couple and we look forward to the wedding.
……
KEARNEY: Well, since
we've been elected, we have injected over $1 billion into the digital health
sector. It's an area that we think we have to really take up because it will, I
think, advance health care dramatically for patients, which is really what
we're here for. So, for example, we're finding that the uptake of My Health
Record – something that we are very serious about expanding if we can – has
been phenomenal. We've had a 40 per cent increase in the last year of records
that have been uploaded into-
JENNETT: [Interrupts]
What do you put that down to? Because there was an initial reluctance.
KEARNEY: There was
an initial reluctance. I think there's a couple of things. I think during
COVID, people got quite used to seeing health results digitally. I think that's
part of it. But even more importantly, is that we now have about 99 per cent of
GPs actually engaging with My Health Records, uploading patients’ results and
treatment onto it, and encouraging their patients to use the My Health Record.
It's so good. When I was a nurse, we used old paper files and they got lost.
They got scribbled on, they got torn up, they got things spilt on them. You
know, it was terribly inefficient. Having it all on your phone or in a digital
record, I think, is so much more efficient and will certainly aid patient
treatment.
JENNETT: It does seem to
be accelerating after a pretty sluggish start in this country. Ged Kearney, I
might just take you to one other area that's kind of related to digital health
services. It's an anomaly that's been highlighted by Kate Chaney and
oncologists this week on this program and in the Parliament. Now that we've got
voluntary assisted dying laws in each Australian state, either in place or
coming, it remains a criminal offence for a doctor to provide advice or
consultations using a carriage service. That's the legal term, but to you and
me, a phone or internet connection. The age-old reason being that it might have
promoted suicide. It's viewed differently through voluntary assisted dying laws
now. Is that an anomaly? Is that what the Government views it as and what will
it do about it?
……
Here is the link:
Again we have a new Minister who thinks it is wonderful that all these records are being uploaded to the myHR and takes that as a measure of success!
That many of these uploads are totally automated and that there is no information on how many of these uploads are actually being referenced or used seems to be of no relevance!
The update on usage of the myHR is found here:
https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/my-health-record/statistics
In the Jan 2024 Update we find there are 1.2 Billion documents in the system.
Of those 507K are from consumers.
Consumer usage seems to slowing a little with 6 million data views in January. Sadly it is unclear just what data is being viewed.
GP, Aged Care and specialist use of the myHR still seems pretty low.
We still have no measure of the clinical impact of the myHR sadly.
I have no idea why the Minister thinks all this is great! I wonder does she think the $400M per annum spent on the myHR is value for money?
My view is still that the myHR is a useless lemon. Comment if you disagree with reasons!
David.
5 comments:
"Consumer usage seems to slowing a little with 6 million data views in January. Sadly it is unclear just what data is being viewed."
When you go to see your GP, their clinical system will probably try and access your MyHR, if you have one. This will be treated as an access. Is it useful? probably not, because your GP is the the one who inputs your Summary Record, if you have one; they will already have your test results so, that doesn't help.
Any measure of supposed usage should really include any benefit accruing from it.
MyHR is a write only database, as far as usefulness is concerned.
I had a look at my MyHR today. All it has is MBS and PBS data but nothing about my health status. It's worse than useless, because the government is telling us it does something worth spending billions on.
Minsters are elected, few are qualified to hold such responsibility, even fewer would get an interview if the role was advertised. I think you’ll find Minsters spend their days dodging issues, so until that database becomes a political problem we are stuck with it. After all it’s not the Minister’s money
Pounds to a gooseberry she hasn't had a careful look at her own MyHR and if she she hasn't understood what she is looking at and how useless it is.
It's also most likely that the same can be said about most of the Se actors asking questions about the MyHR.
As the saying goes 'Ignorance is bliss'. .... just like the UK Post Office scandal and the Robodebt scandal!
You mean - Ignorance is bliss until they are caught telling lies.
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